Aias, the huge Achaian (Greek) warrior in Homer's
Iliad, stands on the decks of the Achaian ships at the end of book 15 when
the Trojans have surrounded the Achaians and are about to destroy them.
He keeps up a roar of defiance against the Trojans and fends them off with
a gigantic sea pike; at the same time he shouts encouragement to his despairing
comrades, "aneres este, philoi!" That is, "Be men, dear friends!" Homer
uses this phrase, or close variants, a number of other times in the Iliad
but Aias's cry here is particularly poignant because he continues to shout
and fight even though, as Homer tells us, he believes he is about to die.

The apostle Paul says to the Corinthian Christians,
near the end of the first letter to their church, "watch ye, stand fast
in the faith, quit you like men, be strong." The single Greek word translated
into the four English words "quit you like men" is "andrizesthe", which
means exactly the same thing as Aias said: "be men!" or "show yourselves
men!" Now, that word is common in classical Greek and the Septuagint (the
3rd century B.C. Greek translation of the Old Testament used heavily by
the New Testament writers). But Homer's poems were far and away the most
profoundly influential and well-known works in the ancient world and so
it's very difficult to imagine that the Corinthian Greek Christians did
not hear echoes of Homer when they heard Paul. They were to defend the
faith as the Achaian or Trojan warriors defended their camps, their homes,
their lives, and their friends; they were to be like Aias as he defended
his ships, standing fast, watching every movement of the enemy, showing
strength in the face of nearly certain death, never giving up, being a
true man.

_____________________________________________

DE ASTRIS -- The Return
of the Winter Constellations

On any clear night now, step outside between ten
and eleven o'clock. In almost any location, even in a city, you should
be able to see Orion high in the southeast. If the skies are dark enough,
following a line through his belt to the right and up will lead you to
the bright star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus, and continuing the
line will lead you to the Pleiades, a faint jewel-like cluster of stars
nearly overhead. Following the line in the opposite direction, down and
to the left from the belt, you'll find Sirius, the brightest star in the
heavens. Low in the sky, it scintillates, flashing every color of the spectrum
as you watch. If you have clear skies and can see down to the horizon you'll
see Leo, the Lion, rising in the east, rearing head and forepaws up; and
you'll see the Northern Cross setting, standing upright as it sinks gracefully
into the northwestern horizon.

_____________________________________________

ANNO DOMINI -- The Collects
of Advent

Before the eighth century after Christ, Christmas
was considered to be the beginning of the Christian year. But since that
century (the age of Bede) the Advent season has been considered the beginning
of the Christian year in the West (for the Eastern Orthodox Church the
Church year begins September 1). And from that time to the present, the
basic outline of the services of daily Morning and Evening Prayers and
of the Sunday service in the Book of Common Prayer (and all its variants
throughout the English-speaking world) has remained unchanged, though there
have been countless changes in details. (And since the Book of Common Prayer
has had a profound influence on the Protestant world I refer to it regularly
in these discussions of the Church calendar.)

The Collects are short general prayers for each
Sunday and are also used all the following week in daily Morning and Evening
Prayers. (The word is pronounced with the accent on the first syllable
in this usage.) Many of the collects in the year date from late Roman times
or the early middle ages, but the collects for the first three Sundays
in Advent were written in the Reformation by Thomas Cranmer (the Archbishop
of Canterbury under Henry VIII). He revised the terribly complicated system
of Medieval English liturgy books in the Middle Ages into the single service
book used from his time to the present, the Book of Common Prayer of the
Anglican and Episcopalian communions, and gave it the Reformational emphasis
it now has.

The Collect for the first Sunday in Advent is to
be repeated all season after the other weekly Collects, because it contains
the theme of the season, Christ's first and second comings. If you've subscribed
to Scholegium since last Advent, go to Schola's homepage and click on the
link for Scholegium's Archives, then read last year's article on "The Spirit
of Advent" and then the one on "Bible Sunday", the second Sunday in Advent,
and the collect for it which focuses on reading and knowing Scripture.

_____________________________________________

SIC LOCUTUS

"In the whole circle of Greek literature the two
authors most important for the student of the New Testament are Homer and
Plato. Herodotus informs us that Homer and Hesiod were the chief sources
of the Greek popular religion; and certainly one cannot obtain a clear
grasp of the forces opposed to Christianity without a good knowledge of
Homer and of the hold that Homer had upon the popular mind. If one is to
read intelligently the works of the early church fathers, he must be well
acquainted at first hand with Homer. It is Homer, Homer's religion, and
Homer's gods wich recur constantly in their works and which are attacked
over and over again as being the bulwarks of the heathen faith which they
are striving to supplant. Homer and the ideas he represents are infinitely
more important for the student of the New Testament and of the early church
..."